The present invention relates to an arthroscopic surgical apparatus and, more particularly to a surgical apparatus which enables a surgeon to safely, conveniently and efficiently conduct a minimum-invasive surgery of a patient's joint.
Arthroscopic surgical instruments such as hook punches, scissors and grasping forceps are well known in the art. However, the prior art fails to provide an arthroscopic surgical instrument having a mechanical means for assisting the surgeon to avoid accidental scratching of tissues adjacent the treated site. Rather, the accuracy of such prior art mainly depends on the manual dexterity and skills of the surgeon.
Further, the prior art provides arthroscopic surgical instruments having a shear pin for restricting the maximal load on the operating tip of the instrument. Such a shear pin is designed to break under a predetermined overload, thereby preventing breaking of the operating tip within the patient's body. However, the shear pin provided by such prior art is substantially fixed within the surgical instrument. Thus, when such a shear pin breaks it is necessary to disassemble other parts of the surgical instrument for replacing the shear pin. Such procedure is time consuming and cannot be carried out during operation.
Further, the existing surgical instruments fail to provide a means for assisting the medical team to immediately identify the type of surgical tool to be used so as to facilitate handling of various types of similar-looking tools during operation.
There is thus a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have, an arthroscopic surgical apparatus which enables a medical team to safely, conveniently and efficiently conduct an arthroscopy surgery. Specifically, there is a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have, an arthroscopic surgical apparatus which includes a mechanical means such as a stop screw for assisting the surgeon to avoid accidental scratching of tissues adjacent a treated site. There is further a recognized need for an arthroscopic surgical apparatus which includes a readily replaceable shear pin which can be easily replaced by the medical team upon breaking. There is further a recognized need for an arthroscopic surgical apparatus which includes a means for immediately identifying the type of surgical tool to be used by a surgeon, thereby facilitating handling of several similar looking tools and thus improving the efficiency of the surgical procedure.